Maximum Offence (39 page)

The general looks puzzled.

‘It was one job, right?’

‘Right,
sir
.’

I ignore him.
What’s he going to do?

‘One job, that’s right?’

His nod is slight. He seems to be watching, and I can see his eyes focus on something behind me. It’s probably one of the safety signs. Our tub is littered with them: although I can’t see the point. Anyone who doesn’t understand that explosives go bang or stepping into space without a suit kills is too stupid to be alive in the first place.

‘Sven,’ he says, ‘where are you?’

‘In a Z-class mining tug.’

He sighs. ‘I don’t want to know, do I?’

‘Sir,’ I say, surprising myself. ‘What was the job?’

The general glances out of screen, stands up and disappears. When he gets back, he’s clutching a floating lenz. This says some interesting things about his sex life. Although who am I kidding? I’d probably record my own, if I could afford the kit.

‘Capture or kill,’ he says. ‘You already know the target.’

Except I don’t, or maybe I do . . . One of us is in for a shock, and it is probably him. And since generals don’t like shocks, and I don’t like floating around in space miles from home, I am going to have to be careful how I word this.

‘Did you know about the party?’

‘On arrival?’ He nods, his smile mocking. ‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘We heard all about your party. Quite the social animal.’

‘And did you hear about the person I killed?’

He goes still.

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘No one died at that party.’

‘They didn’t?’

‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘They didn’t. There was, however, a tragic accident later that evening. As you know—’ He catches himself. ‘Well, maybe you don’t.’

General Jaxx shakes his head.

‘Oregon Marx, the U/Free president,’ he says. ‘Died in a fall. You had nothing to do with that . . .’

‘I didn’t?’

Turns out the general isn’t telling me. It’s a question. ‘Sven,’ he says. ‘Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that.’

‘
I didn’t have anything to do with that
.’

He sucks his teeth. Now generals don’t suck their teeth. Militia troopers suck their teeth. And then he looks at the lenz, checking it really is turned off. And he flips open a pad to pass his fingers across the top.

‘This line,’ he says.

‘Is secure . . . Haze set it up,’ I add, when the general looks doubtful.

‘Your pet Enlightened?’

‘Yes.’ I had forgotten he knew about that.

‘That party,’ he says. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You understand?’

‘Completely, sir,’ I say. ‘At that party Paper Osamu’s grandfather didn’t ask me to kill the president . . .’

The general shuts his eyes.

‘What about Hekati, sir . . . ? Also the general and the mother ship. What’s our position on those?’

He looks up from under half-open eyelids. And I’ve seen cats torturing half-dead mice look cuddlier. ‘
Hekati
,’ he says. ‘
The general . . . Mother ship
.’ A space is left between each item.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘What’s our position on those?’

‘Sven,’ he says. ‘There is no
our
. . . I’m here; you’re floating in a tin can somewhere. And this conversation is over.’

‘I know about the Ninth.’

General Jaxx halts, his hand an inch away from a switch that will shut me off and leave me floating out here. Because I have just realized something. The U/Free think we’re dead. So they’re not going to come racing out here to collect us either. But someone might find us, and he is not sure he can take that risk.

‘Where are the others?’ he asks me.

‘In the airlock, sir.’

The general looks at me, very strangely.

‘What are they doing in the airlock?’

‘Waiting, sir. I locked them all in there. Didn’t want them overhearing this conversation.’

General Jaxx sweeps his hand back across his skull, and then discreetly wipes his hand on his uniform trousers. Buttoning his shirt, he tucks it in and stands up to put on his jacket.

‘If I tell you to dump them all into space?’

‘Then I pull the lever, sir.’

‘I believe you would.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He sighs. ‘You have no notion,’ he says, ‘how tempting I find that idea.’ Sitting down again, he leans forward. ‘This was a simple mission, Sven. A basic infiltrate and terminate. Sounds to me like you messed up.’

Thinking back over the past three weeks, I can see how he might think that.

‘What are your casualties?’

‘Franc, sir.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What about enemy losses?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

He must hear something in my voice, because he leans closer to the lenz. ‘Sven,’ he says, ‘give me a figure.’

I shake my head, but it is not insolence. I really don’t know. ‘How many people are there on a mother ship, sir?’

He sits back. ‘You destroyed a mother ship?’

‘Yes, sir. It killed Hekati—’ I hesitate. ‘Well, it wounded Hekati.’ My mouth tastes sour with the recollection. It will be a while before I scrub the habitat’s dying scream from my memory. ‘The mother ship split,’ I tell him. ‘Birthed a cruiser.’

‘We’re talking about
Victory First Last and Always
?’

What does he think we’re talking about? That’s the problem with senior officers. They’re too busy thinking about half a dozen other things to listen to what is being said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So we’re talking about an Uplift general?’

‘No, sir. I’m talking about General Tournier.’ This is getting more complicated than I like. And something in the general’s gaze tells me I know too much for his comfort or my safety.

‘General Tournier died in battle, gloriously.’

‘I’m sure he did, sir.’

‘OctoV announced it. General Tournier died in battle. As did the entire Ninth Regiment. They fought heroically, to the last man.’

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘That explains it . . .’

He asks the obvious question,
Explains what?

And I’m doing my best to come up with an answer when I think of Franc, whose self-inflicted scars were the only things tying her to reality. And before that, something a colonel once said after Haze referred to a dead Uplifted as a machine.

I have my answer.

‘General Tournier had braids . . .’

‘
Sven
.’

‘Braids, sir. All the senior officers did. And there were . . .’ I try to remember. ‘At least a hundred of them, maybe more. Many more.’

‘A thousand died at Jade3.’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sure they did. Died gloriously.’

‘You’re saying that’s a lie?’ The general’s voice is hard. He’s lost his silky smoothness, skipped the bit where his words are meant to go icy.

‘No, sir. I’m saying the Uplifted brought them back to life.’

‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘You’re good at this.’

It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Jaxx swear. I’m negotiating for my life here; we’re both aware of that. I’m negotiating for the lives of my troopers. And then there is Aptitude. I swore to her mother that I would stick around to protect her. I intend to keep that promise.

‘Sir,’ I say, my voice firm. ‘The Enlightened obviously resurrected an entire regiment.’ Sounds like the truth to me. And it will be the truth by the time I’ve finished with it.

‘Go on,’ he says.

‘I don’t imagine the U/Free knew about that. But, honestly, how could we be expected to sign a treaty with our own dead?’

‘Sven,’ the general says. ‘Talk me through this.’

———

We get to the bit where the Silver Fist cruiser sends fighters after us and we kill them. And then hide in the mirror dock of a habitat. ‘Where you found the tug?’

I nod. ‘Yes, sir. We were almost out of oxygen.’

‘And then?’

‘Franc flew a suicide mission.’

The general looks interested. ‘How did you choose?’

‘She volunteered.’

He smiles, because that pleases him. He’s impressed by stuff like that. And his smile gets wider as I run him through the rest, how we destroyed a B79 bomber and crashed an epsilon-class cruiser into a force field and used the power drain to make our escape in a mining tug. Although his smile falters when I tell him about persuading Hekati to explode.

‘She was dying?’

‘Almost dead,’ I say. ‘Beyond saving.’

‘Good,’ he says. ‘The U/Free will want to know that.’

It is the first thing he’s said that suggests I won’t be spending the rest of eternity floating on the edge of an asteroid field. His next sentence confirms it.

‘I’ll put in a call,’ he says. ‘Talk to Paper Osamu myself. I’m sure she’ll be with you soon enough.’

‘Sir . . .’

He looks at me.

‘Thought you might want to collect us yourself.’

Set the hook, my old lieutenant used to say. Set the hook and reel them in. Only, this time, it’s not just a saying. Well, the reeling in bit isn’t — we will get to that.

‘And why would I want to collect you?’ General Jaxx is too interested to be outraged.

‘Three reasons, sir.’ Opening my shirt, I hold up the planet buster.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It’s a good start,’ he says. ‘What are the others?’

So I tell him the tug is tied to the biggest chunk of crystal-line carbon I’ve ever seen. And he knows what our glorious leader is like about diamonds.

‘And the third?’

‘Vijay,’ I say.

The general closes his eyes. It’s brief, and he catches it fast. General Jaxx doesn’t show weakness or forgive those who see it in him. With his son’s name, I undo all the good I have done myself in the previous ten minutes.

‘He died well?’ There’s more hope than belief in the question.

‘He did as ordered,’ I say. ‘Killed General Tournier. Cut his throat and hacked off his traitorous head. I have the head with me.’

‘That makes four things,’ says the general.

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘Never was good at counting.’

‘And my son? He died bravely?’

‘Colonel Vijay’s here, sir.’

‘Sven,’ says General Jaxx. ‘Are you saying my son is in the airlock with your troopers?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I say. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘The airlock you’re planning to blow if I give the order?’

‘Yes, sir.’

General Jaxx looks impressed.

GLANCING AT A FORK, I CHECK THE OTHER FIVE FORKS NEXT TO it and wonder what is so special about this one anyway. Six forks, seven knives, four spoons and three glasses. All made from silver.

Apart from the glasses, obviously.

They’re milled from blocks of natural crystal.

In front of me sits a
roundel
of beef. At least that is how it’s described on the menu. The beef is thin as tissue and wind-dried on the shores of a small sea two systems away. Wind-drying the beef seasons it with rare salts. And yes, it says that on the menu too.

‘Begin at the outside,’ says Paper. ‘Work your way in.’ She is talking about the forks. When I reach forward to pick up the beef with my fingers, she rests her hand on my wrist. ‘Don’t,’ she says.

And when I scowl, she adds, ‘Please.’

Imperia is the oldest restaurant in Farlight. It sits in a narrow street five back from Zabo Square and looks like someone’s house. Obviously, everyone in Farlight has heard about it except me. Even Angelique is impressed. Although she is less impressed when she discovers who’s asked me to supper.

As for Shil, she just slams a door on her way out.

A limousine hover picks me up from Golden Memories.

Actually, it doesn’t. Paper thinks it does, but the driver she hires knows he’ll be robbed blind before he gets halfway there. So he puts in a call and I agree to meet him halfway.

Don’t think I am what he’s expecting. Might be the uniform, might be the dagger at my hip. Might be the fact my SIG-37 takes one look at the smoked-glass windows and chrome grille on his hover and laughs.

‘So,’ says Paper. ‘What do you think?’

Looking at my plate, I realize I have eaten the lot.

‘It was all right,’ I say.

She sighs.

Our only conversation so far was brief. And Paper’s been frowning ever since. All I asked was whether she had visited an area north of Karbonne where the ancient dumps are. She asked me which planet. When I told her, she said no, she didn’t think so.

A waiter delivers a plate of Sabine ice fish. It’s caught by hand, gutted immediately and packed in freshly fallen snow. Imperia guarantees that any ice fish served in the restaurant has been caught within the last twenty-four hours. Given the distance between Sabine and Farlight, I’m impressed. I didn’t know cargo ships could travel that fast.

Mind you, we only have the menu’s word that this is ice fish. It could be anything. Personally, I like food I can recognize.

When the waiter has gone, Paper leans forward.
Here it comes
, I think.

‘Must have been tough.’

‘What, Hekati?’ Seems like a reasonable guess to me. Paper Osamu shakes her head. ‘Growing up in the desert. Living with the soldiers who killed your family.’

‘Troopers,’ I tell her. ‘We call them troopers.’

She looks at me.

‘Paper,’ I say, ‘I don’t think about it.’

The U/Free ambassador nods sympathetically. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I can understand that.’

I could say,
No . . . I simply don’t think about it
.

But what’s the point? So I clear my plate and wipe it clean of melted snow with a chunk of bread. There’s something nagging me. So I decide to get it out of the way. ‘Why are we here?’ I ask.

Raising her wine glass, Paper says, ‘To celebrate your safe return.’

‘But the mission was a failure.’

‘
Sven
,’ she says.

‘For the U/Free.’

Paper Osamu looks puzzled. ‘For us?’

‘The treaty,’ I say. ‘The one that would have folded OctoV back into the mind of the Enlightened and Uplifted, ended the war and bound us by treaty to the United Free . . . You must be upset.’

She puts down her glass.

‘Unless, of course, you didn’t really want it signed at all . . .’